craftsmen/artisans vs Cheap goods

[WeaselMender]

I have been a skilled craftsman for over 25 years now. I do not work at my craft after trying to make a living as a blacksmith 3 times on my own. The issue each time was I can do the work or I can market the work but I do not have time to do both. I shall however keep my skill up and continue to teach others as I can.

As to people and prices there is a proverb that says there are only 2 blacksmiths that ever went to hell, one hit cold iron, the other didn't charge enough. In the years that I did the show circuit I found that if I got tired of something not selling, raise the price it will sell before the day was out.

Value is something that people do not understand any more. Value is not price it is utility and quality, something has no value if it does not serve the puropse it was bought for, or breaks or becomes unusable before the job is done.

Weasel :ootd:

[DWFII]

As to people and prices there is a proverb that says there are only 2 blacksmiths that ever went to hell, one hit cold iron, the other didn't charge enough. In the years that I did the show circuit I found that if I got tired of something not selling, raise the price it will sell before the day was out.

Value is something that people do not understand any more. Value is not price it is utility and quality, something has no value if it does not serve the puropse it was bought for, or breaks or becomes unusable before the job is done.

Weasel :ootd:

It's funny, almost every craftsman you ever talk to will agree and every non-craftsman look at you like you're crazy if you're asking a fair price.

My old motto is "If you value (price) your work low, others will value it low, as well."

[JRB]

I think there's little chance of a real debate on this subject here. It would seem that on a forum centered around kilts we are all preaching to the choir.

[Bugbear]

The box pleated kilt, and it's story to date, gives me hope, and trust in the ebb and flow of things.

All right, I'm done complaining.

[piperdbh]

I would guess that there are many folks here on XMTS (and many more who are not) who do appreciate quality, who do appreciate the time and skill invested in a particular item, and who would love to own said item, but, because of mortgages and job losses and children's expenses and other limitations, cannot buy the hand-made item and so resort to the mass-produced one. I'm speaking of myself, for one. I'd love to have a hand-forged sgian dubh with a carved wooden handle, but right now my sporran is kind of empty, so I'll make do with the cheap plastic-handled one I bought online. I keep drifting back to L & M Highland's website and lusting after a certain sporran they make, but I can't afford the price tag, so I'll keep wearing the one Tom made me (which is a beautiful work of art that I'm proud to own and wear), and my "Davey Crockett" coonskin.
Two days ago I got a call from a lady wanting a birthday cake. Today. It was to be in a shape and form which I can't discuss on a forum such as this, if you get my drift. In other words, she couldn't get it at the grocery store. Plus, I was going to have to drive 40 miles round trip to deliver it, and work at least half a day to make it. When I told her the price ($40), she told me she couldn't afford it. I don't know what she wound up doing about it, but clearly she had no idea about the cost of a from-scratch, custom birthday cake. Or she's in the same boat as many of the rest of us. My wife and I made our own wedding cake because we had the skill but not the $.

And another thing...
Matt and DWFII hit the hobnail on the head. If young people don't know the value of stuff, or don't know how to do this or that, is it not incumbent upon those of us who do know these things to teach them? That usually involves turning off the television and taking them to a studio or workshop or forge and learning just what it takes to make something. When I knit a pair of hose (or anything else, for that matter) it's not as dramatic as watching a potter or glassblower, but it shows how much time and concentration is needed to follow a pattern and make something wearable.

If you can afford the hand-made item, buy it. Like, for instance, a pair of hand-knit hose, from a certain long-winded member. Many of us would like to be able to afford hand-made things, but we can't. It doesn't necessarily mean we don't appreciate quality.
And yes, I bake my own bread, and I've harvested 375 cucumbers from my garden this summer.

[MMorgan]

I brew my own beer.... does that count for anything

Actually I am also one of the odd ones that tend to have alot of the "older" skills that my peers and the ones younger then me just dont seem to care about. 30-40 years ago Everyone had to learn to do things themselves or do without so it was common place to be able to sew,cook,work on the car,work with wood/leather/metal, hunt,fish etc etc... And in being able to do those things people ALSO understood what it took to do those thing WELL or to be a Master (or even journeyman) so thay appreciated the work involved and was willing to work and save or trade/barter to get what they wanted and take care of what they got...

[DWFII]

I would guess that there are many folks here on XMTS (and many more who are not) who do appreciate quality, who do appreciate the time and skill invested in a particular item, and who would love to own said item, but, because of mortgages and job losses and children's expenses and other limitations, cannot buy the hand-made item and so resort to the mass-produced one....

I agree with you. We all of us have our priorities and eating tends to be high on the list.

But I would observe that...at least as I understand it...this discussion is about "quality." How to perceive it, how to achieve it.

To my mind, once we introduce monetary considerations into the picture we so completely obscure the idea of quality that it becomes meaningless. Money can never, ever, be a modifier or a factor in perceiving or achieving quality.

Money may be a factor in whether we can afford quality but it doesn't make something that we can afford quality...or something we can't afford, trash.

And the same is true for the Tradesman...you cannot punch a clock and create quality. It takes what it takes. You cannot pinch pennies (in raw materials) and create quality. Any made object is only as good as what it is made of.

Once cost and/or money becomes a factor the whole idea of quality becomes moot.

[ronstew]

In these parts, "sustainability" has been a buzzword for ten or fifteen years. One aspect of sustainability is densification - packing more people into land. The more you do that, the fewer people are going to do their own hunting or baking. Densification makes industrial agriculture and massed produced goods absolutely necessary. (I have always felt the sustainability crowd holds conflicting beliefs, but that is perhaps a topic for onother thread.)

DWFII - wrt to hunting your own meat, I have some confessions. If I had to choose one beverage for the rest of my life it would be milk. The fresher the better. But the one day I had a chance to drink milk straight from the bucket, I just couldn't do it. And I am a renowned meat-eater, as long as the meat comes from a butcher or in a plastic wrapper. But when my brother the hunter offers me a fine cut of venison, I cannot stomach it. And then there were the berries that I threw away last week because I found worms in them.

I like mass-produced, impersonal, genetically modified, Monsanto factory food. I shouldn't, but I do.

[tyger]

And I am a renowned meat-eater, as long as the meat comes from a butcher or in a plastic wrapper. But when my brother the hunter offers me a fine cut of venison, I cannot stomach it.

That reminds me of joke about the woman who was giving the hunter the devil because he had a deer in the back of his pickup truck. She said: "Why can't you get your meat at the grocery store like all the rest of us!"


It's fine that you like the packaged product! I do too. That means that it is also fine that men and women can package their own. I like that too!

[DWFII]

DWFII - wrt to hunting your own meat, I have some confessions...

Hey, I don't hunt or milk anymore, either. But I have done. And I think it is essential to have done both to really appreciate what you are consuming.

A person doesn't really know what is involved in eating meat until they have killed an animal and watched the light go out of its eyes. And yes, felt remorse. And if you are any kind of thinking/feeling person that remorse will stay with you for the rest of your life.

And that's really the issue as I see it. Too many people walking around with no remorse; no connection to the processes...the focus, the sweat (and blood), and the often painful growth...that go into a Rab Gordan, for instance; little or no respect for the sensibilities and traditions of cultures that are so blithely adopted and then misconstrued.

And again, I didn't really intend that my remarks be an indictment of anyone in particular or even any particular choice an individual makes. We all have our own priorities...often driven by necessity. [Although indifference does tend to be cumulative--enough disrespect, enough impassivity, and pretty soon "Jack's a dull boy," indeed.]

But the topic, as I understand it is "quality" and what I was getting at was that doing for yourself...producing something tangible, within a hierarchy of self-criticism and "good, better, best"...is probably the only way to understand what quality really is. Even if you've only done it occasionally...there, in those random moments, are the seeds of understanding.

I've spent the better part of my adult life thinking about this issue. Of course that doesn't mean my words are writ in stone. But it is critical to me simply because I want to insure that my Trade, and a certain respect...maybe even reverence...for beauty and quality, endures.

And that's not a given in a predominantly materialistic, consumer driven, society such as ours is...or is becoming.